Players:
Summary: Corrin comes to the bar to check up on Bruce. The bartender fills him in on a plot to trap the Mutant Town Shooters.
Title: A Theory and a Plan
Rating: G
NYC - Nowhere
Nowhere is a community bar, with a slightly old world feel. All of the tables and chairs are made of wood, though there are some couches in a slightly offset room with green fabric. The music varies, depending upon the Owner's music taste for the day. Beer and Liquor are both served, but are both carded for as well.
At the front of the bar, right as one walks in,is a large sign. "Superhuman friendly establishment. There will be no tolerance for disparaging remarks based on one's genetic status. Any fights will not be tolerated within the bar. The management holds no responsibility for where combatants are teleported."
Scene
The bar reopened a few days ago, most of the reconstruction being done by now. A few walls still need to be painted and some of the tables have yet to be replaced, but the owner decided to open the bar again anyway. The crowd is a little smaller than it was before the shooting, but it will probably pick up over time.
There are two bartenders working today. A man in an Australian hat and a woman with ice blue hair. The man is currently pouring a round of beers for a group of men standing on the other side of the counter. "Alrighty then, mates. I'll add it to yer tab." He offers a wink and turns back to the other tender. "Ya know Lil, if things don't pick up we may need part time jobs." The woman just shrugs and works on a crossword puzzle.
Corrin pushes through the door and pauses beside it to let his eyes adjust to the light. Different in here… and the same. The place smells like a barbeer, peanutswith an undertone of fresh-cut wood. He's not sure how he feels about that—except responsible. He has the nasty suspicion that the bad guys who shot the place up did so in part because of him.
He does spot someone he recognizes and he heads for the bar. "Hey," he says, trying to catch Bruce's attention. "Good to see you. Is the place open for business?" Yes, he asks, in spite of the beer in evidence. Just in case.
The blue haired bartender flashes Corrin a sharp look. "He's one of the ones who destroyed this place the first time." She turns to Bruce, "I mean, he did save some folks, too. Fill him in on the plans, maybe he'll help out." She turns back to Corrin, "But if they come back here after you again I'll personally hand you over to 'em, got it?" She goes back to her crossword, half listening to Bruce as he explains his plan.
Bruce nods, Yeah we're open. And yeah I'll fill him in. He seems to know about as much as we do." He waves a hand at the liquor shelf behind him. "What'll ya have? On the house tonight. Well…Just for you. Other folks gotto pay." He'll explain their plan after he's gotten Corrin his drink.
Corrin looks alarmed at Lil's statements. "Um," he says. "Yeah. And I wouldn't blame you for doing it." He rubs the scar on his cheek and looks toward Bruce. "A single-malt Irish whiskey, if you have it. Thank you."
He'll look back toward the door. "I cased the street before coming in, including the rooflines," he says. "Small crowd tonight, so if they're planning something, I don't think this is a good night—but the street, the first time, wasn't high kill possibilities, either, so…" He turns back to Bruce. "I wanted to talk to you about keeping Mutant Town safe."
Bruce nods to the man and turns to pour him a drink, discovering that Lil is already in the process of doing so. She pushes the glass toward Corrin and goes back to pretending not to pay attention. Bruce nods a thanks to her and leans in a bit to speak in a lower voice. "Yeah, they'll need to replace their cameras before they come back here. Magneto ripped 'em all out a few weeks back." He nods, "Yeah and he put me in charge of this part of the city. Haven't left since the shootings. Go on patrol whenever I've got time."
"Magneto? Oh." Corrin nods thanks to Lil for the drink, but his mind is elsewhere: mutantkind's heavy hitter is involved? "Could these shootings be a ploy to draw him out? Or one of the other big name… they tend to show up when these sorts of events start happening, they get involved…" He blinks a couple of times, and then focuses on Bruce. "And you're in charge around here? All right. What do you want me to do?"
Bruce nods and keeps his voice low. "Well I have a couple suspicions. I still think this is a government operation. Not sure if they're after Magneto himself yet, but if there's a point system involved you can bet he's worth big bikkies." The man glances around quickly. "I was talking to this kid who tends to give me trouble. Some ghost kid…Casper or something. Says he goes to this school called Barnes, guess it's some government joint run by a group called SHIELD."
A patron comes up to the bar to order something from Bruce, but Lil beckons the woman over toward her so the two men can continue their conversation. "Er…Anyway, this kid tells me SHIELD is some super exclusive government agency. They specialize in working with mutants and other folks with powers, apparently training them to fight against other mutants." He shakes his head, "That's not all. Kid says he tried to leave once? They tailed him. They knew what his weaknesses were and used 'em against him to take him back against his will. I think this school's a front to learn about mutant weaknesses. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the point system was to get into this SHIELD thing."
"Supra-government agency. It's international. SHIELD is." Corrin says that automatically. "They don't do just mutants. They do policing and military-style interventions, usually when invited, but sometimes not. They go up against organizations like HYDRA and … AIM." He blinks a couple of times and shakes his head. "They don't normally do powers, but they'll use contractors who have them. Fury is always looking for new blood…"
He rubs his temples. "But they followed the Barnes kid? I know a couple of people from Barnes… they seem to be good people. One saved my butt, during one of the shoot-outs… stopped me bleeding out." But points…? First he's heard about points…
"Yeah well this kid seems a bit frightened of the place. Says they run the place kind of like a prison. Most of the kids seem happy enough, but they don't let them leave. When they do they're tracked, so he says. They apparently made a device specifically designed to depower and detain him. Why would they do something like that for a kid in their school? Seems a little fishy to me."
Bruce reaches under the bar and pulls out a Fosters, cracking it open. Lil gives him "the look" but he just waves a hand dismissively at her. But anyway, these guys want points? We'll give 'em points. We're planning a big event. A block party, a huge one. Maybe a festival in the park, still waiting to hear back on some of the permits and such." He shrugs, "Anyway, good ol' Lil here'll be our voice, we want to make 'em think it's all low powered mutants. Draw em out to the big crowd. But we'll have me, magneto, and a few other powerful mutants there ready to take em out. We could use your help if you're interested."
Corrin listens, his eyes going tense at the corners. "Bait. You're using the people as bait." He looks toward Lil, who is still dealing with the woman who came in. He heard her talk about a 'plan', so he knows she must have agreed to it. "There'll be kids at this party, right? And old folks, and non-combatants…" He pushes himself straight and frowns. "I don't like it. Oh, my god, but yes, I'll be there." One hand scrubs through his hair. "I can throw my shield, but it's only good for discrete targets, like one person or two people hugging each other. Do we have something better, if Magneto isn't there or if he's busy?"
Bruce chuckles. "Yes, we're using the people as bait, but I think we can pull this off with minimal casualties. If everything goes according to plan no one will even know that the shooters were there at all." He shakes his head, "And don't worry about Magneto. He wouldn't miss this for anything. With him there they're weapons will be useless. I'll surround the area with sand so I can create protective bunkers if I should need to. We're also going to try and set it up in such a way that the shooters can only attack from a couple of vantage points. If we know where they'll be, we know where we need to defend."
Corrin nods, forcing himself to untense. He picks up his drink and downs half of it. "Right." Control the attack points. "We'll let them set up, then take them before they fire into the crowd? And I hear even Magneto can be outfoxed—what happens if the bad guys think of bringing plastic weapons?" He thinks about the park. Not a great place to defend…
Bruce shrugs. "Plastic weapons won't do much if they fire plastic bullets. We'll have a few other mutants in the area protecting the crowd should Magneto go down. I doubt it will come to that though. None of the previous shootings have shown evidence they were prepared for Magneto to be there. They have no reason to suspect he'll be here now." He drinks a bit more of his beer. "And if we keep the areas they can attack from minimalized, then we can set traps there as well."
"…So long as they don't do something from long range this time." Corrin puts his glass down and rubs both his temples. "Yeah. I want to help out. I will help out. Just tell me where and when and I'll be there." He looks up at Bruce. "In the meantime, I'll keep a weather eye out for anything out of the ordinary here in the 'Town. If you're patrolling at night… are you the only patroller at night? I can help, a bit, some evenings, but I have a job that I need to show up for. Daytimes are mostly already spoken for."
Bruce nods. "Yeah well lets hope they don't try anything odd this time. And you'll know about it, trust me. Watch for this little lady in the news." He points a thumb toward Lil. "And yeah any nights you could spare would be helpful." He grabs a pen from the register and feeds out a bit of the register tape. Bruce jots a phone number down on the piece of paper with the name "Dingo" scribed underneath it. "Give me a call if you're in the area and want company. I usually go on patrol for a couple hours after the bar closes."
Corrin takes the slip and reads it, and carefully tears off a bit and prints his own phone number on it, labeling it 'Corrin'. He offers it to Bruce. "If you need help, feel free to contact me. I'll let my boss know about this—he's understanding about such things."
Bruce nods as he takes the paper. "Alrighty then Mr…Corrin." He looks up and smiles at the man. "I'll give ya a call next time I go out. Might not be a bad idea to have you help with planning the event, too. Never have too many eyes looking at the situation is the way I see it." He lowers his voice again, "Though for obvious reasons we're keeping the reason for the fair hush hush. I suspect there's a mole in Mutant Town itself."
Corrin nods. "I suspect as much, myself. They know too much about this place… physically, anyway. It seems, though, that they have absolutely no interest in the people who are here, save as targets." He makes a face.
He lifts his glass and toasts Bruce with it. "Here's to you, Dingo, for being the good guy in all this. And sir? If I may ask… NEVER call me Mr. Corrin." He smiles, and drains the whiskey.
Bruce chuckles. "All right then. I'll just call ya Corrin." He nods once more. "And watch yerself. Man said we're all worht a certain amount of points. I'm sure folks who've survived their last attacks will be worth more points than others. They'll be after us." He looks up at the clock and calls out to the bar "LAST CALL!" This causes the few patrons in the bar to shuffle up to the counter. "Well, hate ta cut ya short, but I gotto shut down the bar soon."
"Thank you for speaking with me, and for the drink. I'll talk to you later about the other matters." Corrin sets his empty glass on the bar. "Good whiskey, by the way." A smile and a wave, and a five on the bar—tip for the service. He heads out, leaving the staff to do their thing.
Bruce offers a quick nod to the man as he departs, picking up the five and sticking it in a jar behind the counter. He and Lil get the last of the drinks out to their patrons and will clean up before heading home for the night.
~ Fin ~
